Compressing Scanned Documents

Compressing scanned documents

After scanning a document, the PDF or TIFF file produced can be too large for sharing purposes. This may be a setback for a project or just something you are doing at home. These situations call for compressing scanned documents. Compressing the scanned documents will make it small enough to e-mail and share with other people. Compressing scanned documents can go through a couple of methods though, and it is important to understand the difference between the options.

Different methods of compressing scanned documents

When compressing scanned documents, there are two methods available: lossy and lossless compressions. Lossy compression will alter and reduce the quality of any videos, images and graphs within the scanned document. The compression will also streamline the fonts, making it one font instead of multiple fonts. These actions will make the file small enough, but at a cost. Lossless compression will not compress the scanned document as much as lossy, but it will maintain the integrity of the file in its entirety. Lossless methods sometimes utilize tools like Winrar and Winzip to get the job done.

Where to find software for compressing scanned documents

Software for compressing scanned documents can be found through internet searches, with many of your options being free. This compression software is good to evaluate, but a commercial tool should be considered as you use the program more. Many free tools do not provide the options found in commercial software, such as batch compressions.